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COP17 climate talks in Durban ended with mixed reactions and emotions. The deal? To establish a new body, the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, to negotiate a new global agreement for emissions reduction by 2015, to come into effect and be implemented from 2020. So, what does this mean to me? Well, the short answer is a whole lot and nothing at all! Continue reading →

The challenges we see in the UNFCCC ( United Nations Climate Change Convention), are not very different from the challenges we see among civil society, or the challenges we, the IofC team, have with living in Maria’s ( Our sweet host in Durban) house. Wei, Firyal, Jennifer, John Liu and myself are going on a collective journey of collectively creating our living and work space. We have diverse perceptions about life and work, which have been upsetting at times, but create a dynamic lively atmosphere to our life. Continue reading →

Reflecting as a rookie at the Conference of Parties (COP), the end of the first week has evoked many conflicting feelings. There is an overwhelming sense of excitement, motivation and inspiration that has been perverted many times along the way with strong feelings of intimidation, confusion, frustration, and exclusion. Continue reading →

I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend COP17. It is for sure a steep learning curve being here – at times, feelings of being out of place and not sure how to approach people and at first, I was unsure of what my ‘agenda’ was. It is clear that many civil society groups have specific agendas and they know how they want to be represented in the negotiations, i.e. Mediators Without Borders want mediate in the text as an option to resolve disputes. There are so many agendas that I personally feel connected to, yet I am grateful that I am not tied to one agenda. Continue reading →

Alliance Of Small Island States (AOSIS), led by Tuvalu, has brought forward an all or nothing, high stakes bid for a new agreement in Copenhagen, that asks big developing country polluters such as China, India, Saudi Arabia, to have binding legal targets. In response, China, India and Saudi Arabia stated that they thought this was a plot to kill the Kyoto Protocol, to distract from the matter at hand. The substantial and tragic matter that Tuvalu brought to attention by it’s strong intervention in the Copenhagen merry go round-cum chessboard – is that island states will disappear if countries like China and India do not agree to new and binding targets, in much the way Annex 1 Countries did, under the Kyoto Protocol.

About this blog

Welcome to the blog of the Environment and Economic Working Group of Initiatives of Change, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) working for peace, reconciliation and human security worldwide.

Since 2009, the group has participated in the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This blog started with the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen as an opportunity for the group members to write about their experiences and reflections on the process. The blog continued with COP16 in Cancun, Mexico and continues now with COP17 in Durban, South Africa.

NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. This blog represents the views of the individual authors and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.